The Bermuda Sun – March 3rd 2004 Donations put wind under sloop team’s sails By Patrick Bean (News from 2004-03-03 Edition) CASH windfalls are propelling the Bermuda Sloop Foundation firmly towards its goal of building a Rigged Bermuda Schooner — with April 1 targetted as the start date for construction. |The training vessel is expected to cost in the region of $5 million, and progress is due in no small part to donations that have come from many segments Bermudian society, both corporate and private. Recently the BSF celebrated a gift of more than $50,000 from the Cooper family, which has a proud history of seafaring. And it is the hope of BSF President, Alan Burland, that many more families will contribute to the fund. “The Sloop Foundation is hugely thankful to the A.S. Cooper family for stepping up and showing leadership — it will really help us get to our desired position of starting to build the vessel on April 1,” said Mr. Burland, himself no stranger to the water, having represented Bermuda at the Olympic Games. “We’ve raised $2.2 million towards the building and we need to get to $3 million to start and we have $750,000 in the endowment, so we’re making very good progress and this is a great gesture from the Cooper family.” In making the donation, the Cooper family become ‘Founding members’ of the BSF. The gift was made in memory of Alexander Samuel (A.S.) and Laura Ann (Donnie) Cooper and their five sons — Sir Gilbert, Arthur, Charles, Edmund and Forster Cooper. And while the bulk of the donation is earmarked for the building account, the family has also pledged sponsorship of an annual Crew Mate of the Year Award, which will offer a scholarship for annual tuition to courses of expeditionary learning offered by BSF and its ‘floating classroom’. “We believe our grandparents would stand firmly behind the Bermuda Sloop Foundation programmes on various fronts,” said A.S. Cooper Ltd., Chairman, Kirk Cooper in announcing the donation. He talked about the development potential of sail training in Bermuda for young Bermudians and about young Bermudians representing Bermuda each summer in the port cities of our traditional tourism markets. “And not least,” he added, “it reminds us constantly in this modern era of the positive Bermudian values that have evolved on this small island for 400 years. “Bermudians have always had a lot to do with the sea and it’s appropriate for us to consider the Bermuda Sloop Foundation as more than something happening in a particular period of time; this is an ongoing, huge effort and at the Board of Directors’ meeting we voted to support it on a significant scale in recognition of our forefathers, particularly the Cooper and Young families. The Young family in particular had some captains and so many other seafaring men in that branch of the family and we believe very seriously in the mission that this particular vessel is attempting to accomplish… and that they will accomplish it. “Bermuda will be able to reap great benefit from an effort that is so coordinated, which comes from being associated with the sea. Anybody who has had anything to do with the sea will know that it’s very difficult to take a boat to sea until you have [extraordinary] team work. This particular vessel is going to deploy all of its assets in terms of teaching people how to do things and how to lead, and will be totally bipartisan to help people of all races and backgrounds, all walks of Bermudian life.” It is hoped that, once built, the boat will also take part in traditional transatlantic races such as the Newport-Bermuda Race and Marion-Bermuda Race, races in which Cooper himself has excelled over the years.